沙灘上的角頭
厚葉牽牛（Ipomoea imperati (Vahl) Griseb.）在澎湖的夏季沙灘上，常會看到同屬（牽牛花屬）的植物分別爭奪自己的地盤，聽到牽牛花對於它最直接的印象就是花冠像喇叭狀，不過其實這種植物最大的特點就是花冠未展開時呈現螺”旋”狀，因此而得名旋花科。在海濱有兩組人馬互相較勁，一組是跑得快的馬鞍藤（Ipomoea pes-caprae (L.) R. Br. subsp. brasiliensis (L.) Oostst.），可以說是海濱植物的印象派，另外一種是走得慢的厚葉牽牛，在烈日的照射下，它就那一閃一閃的在沙灘上試探著你的目光，這兩種植物在地盤的角力上互不相讓，但似乎又看出來不同的手段，厚葉牽牛的葉形相當多變，從全緣葉至5裂，當然也隨著裂的程度來增減葉面積，讓缺乏水分的生育地找到適應的絕佳技能之一，而它的葉子也比起馬鞍藤來得厚，柵狀組織跟海綿組織都有著過人的能力，看看那個跑得快的馬鞍藤有種就來場沙浴競賽，我猜想厚葉牽牛應該可以海放對手。看著兩者在沙灘的競賽活動，嘗試著理解拜澎湖植物告訴我們的事，快與慢似乎都有它的道理，中間的部分...

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument ("OP") in southern Arizona is a 517 square mile UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and the only place in the U.S. where the organ pipe cactus and senita cactus are found. The southern boundary is 62 miles from the coastal port of Puerto Penasco, Mexico and the northern boundary is 128 miles from Tucson, 128 miles from Phoenix and 173 miles from Yuma. The nearest town of any size on the U.S. side is 15 miles from the northern boundary in Ajo, which had a populati...

• In case you've missed it -
  We've got a new project page for Gall Week 2022 - please join it!
  https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/gall-week-2022
  We will record observations from Saturday, Sept. 3rd to Sunday, Sept. 11th. Please note that you'd need to join the project and add your observations manually.

Just trying a test.... Looking to see if this thing will accomodate a list of my summer's "moth project".

I saw a cool insect at EVI this morning. It is the Tiger Bee Fly. Check out the photo in my recent observations.

Hello everyone! This is the twenty-second "Observations of the Week" post of the Biodiversity of South India Project!
Here they are in order:

1. An endangered and endemic Malabar Torrent Toad (Blaira ornata) from Karnataka by @harshaj.
   This observation...

К проекту добавлена ООПТ ННО БОР Участок леса с пихтой сибирской в Ковровском участковом лесничестве

(writing in progress) 
 
A conventional view of Kruger National Park in its ‘natural’ state is as follows.

The populations of herbivores were limited by the availability of water in the dry season.

According to this model, the provision of artificial water during the 20th century changed the regime fundamentally, to the point where the main constraint became food instead of water.

As readers may know, the Park authorities have been gradually reversing th...

(writing in progress)
 
During fieldwork in Kruger National Park at the end of the drought in 2016, I recorded two spp. of Strychnos, namely

• S. spinosa (in the woody vegetation near large termite mounds in the vicinity of Nyamunda Dam), and
• S. madagascariensis.

Both species were seen only in extremely suppressed form, not as mature or adult individuals.

Strychnos spinosa looked clonal to me. Possibly so is S. madagascariensis although ...

(writing in progress)
  
I turn now to the relatively treeless area on basalt, north of Satara, to continue my documentation and discussion of phenological patterns as revealing ‘surplus’ water in the soil even during drought.
 
See https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2989/10220119.2021.1938222.

As far as I know, the first rain fell at the same time in both of our sam...

Здравствуйте, дорогие пользователи iNaturalist! Поздравляю всех с созданием проекта по биоразнообразию Алданского района (улуса) Якутии.
Там ещё остались дикие места, редкие и новые виды живой природы, которые ждут, чтобы их открыли.
На данный момент это место нуждается в изучении природы, сборе данных о ней и сохранении природных богатств. Надо заполнять белые пятна, изучать и беречь этот удивительный край.
Удачи!

(writing in progress)

The question is: what evidence is there that woody vegetation on basalt near Satara in Kruger National Park, which is relatively low and open, is limited by competition with herbaceous plants (and by the damage inflicted by large herbivores supported partly or mainly by the herbaceous plants) rather than by sheer lack of water? I.e. what evidence is there that it is the nutritional regime, rather than the climate, that constrains the height and density of th...

@tonyrebelo @jeremygilmore @ludwig_muller @wynand_uys @troos

6 August 2022

Orb-weavers (members of the family Araneidae) are some of the most conspicuous members of Minnesota's spider fauna. Their target-shaped webs are easy to see (or walk into) since they span open air space between plants, trees and other objects. The behavior of sitting in the center of their web or in adjacent retreats may make these spiders more noticeable as well.

Eighteen Araneidae genera have been documented in Minnesota. Most genera are represented by ...

@tonyrebelo @jeremygilmore @ludwig_muller @paradoxornithidae @beartracker

(writing in progress)
 
I hypothesise as follows.
 
In the original situation, with the migratory system intact, this vega would have been free of the sagebrush (Pechuel-loeschea leubnitziae) as well as Bothriochloa.
 
With the demise of the migratory system (particularly the great densities seasonally of eland as well as gnu and zebra) the vega has been partly encroached by the sagebrush and the grass stratum has been encroached by Bothriochloa. This is now taken...

Join us for another Gall Week event! This year, gall week falls in early September. We will record observations from Saturday, Sept. 3rd to Sunday, Sept. 11th.

You will need to join the Gall Week project, set up by -- of course -- Merav at https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/gall-week-2022 and add each observation to the project.

Please post your comments and questions to

Up at Scattergood since Friday. It has been very warm - up to 30 deg C - and mostly clear with light breeze. This morning, at Green (Avon) Lake, many Autumn Meadowhawks were emerging, sitting on rushes and other aquatic vegetation, their wings glistening, their flight very laboured. Several other dragonflies and damselflies were about, including (Res grade) Eastern Forktail, Violet Dancer, Blue Dasher, Variable Darner (photographed in flight!). Thanks to all who verified or corrected my ...

皆様、日本語コミュニティに参加していただきありがとうございます。日本在住の方々は生き物から夏を感じられているかと思いますが、私Glycymerisはニュージーランドの冬のしつこい雨に悩まされています(笑)

さて、お知らせです。先ほどプロジェクトの設定を変更しメンバー全員がいろいろな操作ができるようになりました。全員がジャーナル(今私が書いているもの)を投稿することができるようになったため、情報交換、質問、同定依頼などなどにどしどしご活用ください。

私は日本語圏でのiNaturalist普及のため日本語ユーザーの数を数えているのですが、まだ200人程度ほどしか見かけないので、将来にとても期待しています。
現在は日本周辺の生物を得意とするユーザーの割合がまだ足りないですが、もう少し人数が増えればiNaturalistは日本の生物学者、生き物屋や自然好きにとって最高なSNSであると同時に有用なデータベースとなりえます。
私の住んでいるニュージーランドではほぼすべてのメジャーな分類群(軟体,地衣,コケ,クモ,直翅,魚,緑/赤/褐藻...

The lacewings have mostly come and gone, along with the other predators in the milkweed (hover flies, ladybugs, etc). The oleander aphids were nearly all consumed by mid-July but have returned to the narrow leaf milkweed. For the first time in four years, I will likely have no seed pods at all, assuming this is due to the fact that I allowed the aphids to run amok early in the season. Typically by this time I would have dozens of pods and hundreds of milkweed bugs feasting on them, but t...

Gall aficionados! It's that time again! Fall galls are upon us! To celebrate this lovely diversity, September 3-11 join me and a swarm of other people in photographing galls anywhere in North America and the world and adding them to the project Gall Week 2022! Let's see how many species we can find!
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/gall-week-2022

After eight years in the genus Sclerodoris, this unusual sponge-mimicking dorid has gone back to its earlier genus name. Welcome back, Doris tanya.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1406713-Doris-tanya

https://www.molluscabase.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=581806

https://youtu.be/1EmPHHh85yU
Explains in some detail my philosophy when creating projects.

Justicia croceochlamys showing its distinctive anthers.
Justicia croceochlamys: Type locality is Colombia. Yellow calyx. White flowers to 4 cm long. Yellow bracts subtending the flowers to 3.0 cm long by 0.5 mm wide. Bractlets (?) can be longer.
Two anthers. Anthers two lobed, upper lobe attached at an angle (but with no tail), lower lobe attached parallel to filament and with a short tail.
Fro...

Join us for another Gall Week event! We will record observations from Saturday, Sept. 3rd to Sunday, Sept. 11th. Please note that you'd need to join the project and add your observations manually.
To get ready - please join the new Gall Week Project! (I hope I got everyone that was tagged on the original post on the 2021 project. Please tag other people who may be interested.)
@calconey

Man what a year, I have had the great privilege's of visiting three new States being Montana. Oklahoma and Texas. In addition I got to start the year in Hawaii with the first bird I woke up to being a Red Junglefowl, likely fully domestic but it is pretty complicated in Hawaii. One of my favorite bird memories from this year was a spectacular I'iwi on the Kipuka Pualu interpretive trail off the saddle road in Hawaii. Ehen it flew over me all I was feeling was joy and wonder, it then perc...

Though this project is specifically interested in viewing the Ozarks from an ecological perspective, one avenue to this perspective is comparing the ecological interactions of particular taxa across regions. For instance, what are North American Wheel Bugs feeding on in the Ozark Plateau vs. The Interior Plains? With this in mind, the need to do away with this project’s requirement of limiting observations to those of the Ozark Plateau becomes apparent. At first, in order to enable t...

RESUMEN
Se presentan los primeros registros de Heliconia collinsiana var. velutina para la zona central de El Salvador, en dos localidades: Área Natural Protegida Las Granadillas ubicada en el Volcán de San Salvador departamento de La Libertad y en el municipio de La Palma departamento de Chalatenango, con esto se amplía su ámbito que anteriormente, solo se registraba para los departamentos de la zona occidental del país. Adicionalmente, se presentan clave taxonómica, breve descripci...

Join OceanWatch in a journey of discovery of the Shoalhaven Catchment and coastal areas through the lens of bushfire recovery and resilience, on this FREE tour. The tour will run two times: 16 and 18 August 2022 - pick the date that most suits you when booking your ticket! Lunch will be provided. Booking link below.
You will learn about:
* an introduction to bushfire management from Rural Fire Services (RFS) experts
* cultural aspects of bushfire resilience by the Jer...

The time for making IDs on June bioblitz observations is now up, so the final numbers are in. A few more observations were submitted after the june 19 deadline, so the numbers are now at 910 observations of 369 species, by 50 different people. (the friendly competition with other municipalities was based on slightly lower numbers as of June 19) There's no easy way to exclude those so they're simply "in" the project now. Those are pretty solid numbers, considering it was all on fairly sho...